In N. Kalyan Raman’s reading of Tamil cinema, films of the late 1970s and early 1980s made women’s freedom, dignity and vulnerability unusually visible. But visibility did not necessarily mean liberation: many stories still kept women inside male-dominated structures. Raman argues that from the 1990s, popular films increasingly pushed women’s autonomy aside and made misogyny more overt. This is a critical interpretation of selected films, not a statistical account of the whole industry.
Why women’s aspirations became harder to ignore
Raman traces a change in representation to changing expectations among women. The ideal heroine who quietly subordinated herself and sacrificed her wellbeing for husband and family no longer seemed sufficient. Filmmakers had to confront women’s claims to be treated as individuals—and the conflicts involved in pursuing freedom and dignity.
K. Balachander’s films brought contemporary pressures into view. Nootrukku Nooru (1970) concerns a college student’s allegation of sexual harassment by a professor; Arangetram (1973) follows a young woman from a poor Brahmin family who turns to prostitution to support her family. Avargal (1977) and Noolveli (1979) address difficult or abusive marriages. Raman says these stories often resolve through compromise, resignation or, at the extreme, suicide.
He identifies Oru Veedu Iru Vasal (1992) as an exception: its woman rejects her husband and makes a life outside marriage. Raman suggests that the source story by writer Anuradha Ramanan may have helped make that ending possible.
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Women as individuals, and the limits of sympathy
Aval Appadithan: a modern woman left alone
Raman calls C. Rudhraiya’s Aval Appadithan (1978) the first Tamil film to focus exclusively and sympathetically on a modern woman’s predicament. Manju works at an advertising company in Madras. An insecure childhood and betrayal leave her unable to trust Arun, a potential partner who shows her sympathy. The film ends with Manju alone: it gives her interiority without offering a simple romantic rescue. Raman questions whether the film’s cult-classic reputation reflects active empathy or nostalgia.
Rural vulnerability and exploitation
P. Bharathiraja’s 16 Vayathinile (1977) depicts a teenage girl’s vulnerability in a village. In Kizhakke Pogum Rail (1978), a romance between a low-caste poet-drifter and a teenager draws a response from the villagers, making the community part of the conflict.
Durai’s Pasi (1979) follows Kuppamma, a teenage ragpicker seduced by a truck driver. She becomes pregnant, discovers he already has a family and dies in childbirth. The film’s account of exploitation is also an account of the urban poor’s struggle to live with dignity. Raman notes that it won National Awards for director Durai and actor Shobha; the passage does not specify award categories or year.
Mahendran’s quiet films exposed subordination without overturning it
Raman distinguishes J. Mahendran’s work for its taut screenplays, internal logic and quiet storytelling, which avoid baroque sentimentality. These films observe the ways family and community constrain women, but, in Raman’s view, their visual and narrative restraint does not itself dismantle patriarchal authority.
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- Audio Option: Tamil
- Subtitle Option: English
- Genre: Drama, Romance
- Director : R. Karthik, Ra Karthik
- Actor : Ashok Selvan,Ritu Verma,Aparna Balamurali
- Mullum Malarum (1979), based on a short story by Uma Chandran, centres on an orphaned brother and sister. The sister finds a way to marry a man her macho brother opposes without wounding his pride.
- Uthiri Pookkal (1979), adapted from Pudumaipithan’s “Sitrannai,” examines a sadistic man’s abuse of women in his family and a community that fails to respond effectively.
- Metti (1982) follows a woman abandoned by her husband with two daughters, showing how unequal social expectations shape women’s lives.
Across these examples, a useful distinction is between showing women’s subordination and giving them power to change the structures that subordinate them. Raman’s conclusion is that many so-called feminist narratives were made and presented by men, and that women remained constrained by the worlds those films depicted. As he writes, “But women were still hostage to a male-dominated world, as much in Tamil cinema as in the real world.”
What changed in popular cinema from the mid-1980s
Raman argues that this strand of filmmaking did not become a sustained movement. He connects the mid-1980s turn toward big-budget entertainers starring Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan—and the social and political conservatism he associates with high-investment mass-market filmmaking—to dissent being pushed to the margins. This is his interpretation of the shift, not an established industry-wide causal finding.
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For the 1990s onward, Raman points to Chinna Thambi (1991), Padayappa (1999), 7G Rainbow Colony (2004) and Paruthiveeran (2007) as examples in which women are humiliated or destroyed at men’s caprice. His claim is about a pattern he sees in popular films, not proof that every film or filmmaker followed it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read the historical argument
The contrast is not simply between an enlightened past and a misogynistic present. The earlier films Raman discusses often made women’s hardship legible, but their endings and narrative worlds could still preserve male authority. Later films, in his account, more often sidelined women’s autonomy. He proposes caste power and the shift to market economics as possible explanations for the later return to misogyny, while stressing the disproportionate harm hegemonies inflict on poor and weak people. These are hypotheses offered by the essay, not demonstrated causes.
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Raman’s essay is a historical critical reading, not a census: it supplies selected titles rather than decade-by-decade prevalence data. Published in 2017, it also does not establish patterns in Tamil cinema after that date. Its value lies in the questions it applies to films: Is a woman treated as an individual or an ideal or object? Is her conflict driven by a man, family or wider community? Can she reject marriage or choose a life beyond it? Does the ending deliver compromise, resignation or death—or allow her agency? And does the film challenge patriarchal authority, or only show its consequences?
Read N. Kalyan Raman’s essay in Scroll.in, an edited excerpt from Beyond Bollywood: The Cinemas of South India, edited by M. K. Raghavendra.
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